ISLAMABAD: The Uni­ted Nations Security Coun­cil’s sanctions monitoring team on Thursday started its two-day trip to Pakistan for an assessment of the country’s compliance with the world body’s sanctions regime.

“The Monitoring Team (MT) of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) 1267 Sanctions Committee, dealing with the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and Daesh, is in Pakistan for a two-day visit,” Foreign Office spokesman Dr Muhammad Faisal told journalists at the weekly media briefing.

The spokesman said that the visiting team was being briefed about the steps being taken by Pakistan in compliance with the UN sanctions. Moreover, the delegation was apprised of Pakistan’s perspective on terrorist threat in the region.

The team would submit its visit report to the sanctions committee.

Dr Faisal explained that besides assessing the compliance status of the country being visited by the team, the monitoring body also apprised the member states about the evolving nature of terror threats and advised them on dealing with it.

It is believed that about 25 organisations and some 36 people on 1267 sanctions list operate from Pakistan, but the focus has been on Hafiz Saeed and the organisations associated with him.

The government took special steps ahead of the team’s visit, including an advertisement campaign cautioning public against making donations to banned organisations and issuance of a directive barring media houses from publishing statement and advertisement of Hafiz Saeed, LeT, JuD and Falah-i-Insaaniyat. Meanwhile, the top corporate regulator, Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, issued a notification asking companies not to do business with banned organisations.

The spokesman played down the perception that the trip was an extraordinary one saying it was part of its regular visits to member states.

“The UN Monitoring Team has a particular mandate of UN sanctions regime related to the implementation of UNSC Resolution 1267,” he maintained.

Published in Dawn, January 26th, 2018